I have really mixed feelings writing a post that is all about things you should NOT do, as if I know everything that is right and wrong with photography, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The more I learn, the more I gain an understanding of how much I do not know. But that is one of the main purposes of this blog – a tool for myself and other photographers who read it, a journal of sorts of my photography shoots, pitfalls, lessons learned. I do my best to share a lot of my photographic experiences, in hopes of providing: entertainment, inspiration, reflection, learning, and a pile of other things to my readers. Sure, life is a “live and learn” scenario, always, but there are positive and healthy… “shortcuts,” I guess we’ll call them, that may help to you along your photographic journey as well, whether that is a camera or lighting tip, gear awareness, inspiration, or even a little different perspective that may prove to better your own work/life or help you progress quicker over challenges.

1. Investing in Gear Before Knowledge

Man… this one is a biggie. More often then not, I’m approached by one or more people while I’m working an event, them wanting to talk about how awesome the lens I currently have mounted on my camera is. It’s a gigantic misconception that the bigger and more expensive the camera gear is, the better the photographer will be a their job. If this were true, the guy pictured up above is without a doubt the BEST photographer this world has or ever will know. This misconception not only dwells throughout the general public, but it also bleeds heavily into the photographic community as well. Newsflash, an uneducated photographer will take the same caliber of photos with a $10,000 rig as an equally uneducated photographer with a $500 camera rig. Better yet, a knowledgeable photographer can take that $500 rig and wipe the floor with the dumbass who is holding the $10,000 setup. I’ve seen plenty of fools proudly sporting top-end-super-huge-imagestabilized-not-to-be-out-done gear, but clearly not having the knowledge, as I see their photos from the event a couple days later (and I shake my head and giggle… what a waste). You don’t think you can borrow Eric Clapton’s guitar and play like him when you don’t know a lick of guitar, do ya? How about buying the most expensive hammer Home Depot sells and calling yourself a contractor? Does it matter if the tools which you were suckered into buying are “better” than others if you don’t know how to effectively use them in the first place?

We live in a point ‘n shoot world today, with a camera integrated into just about every device out there that has electricity running through it. Yes, camera manufacturers have done a fabulous job with technology,  wrapping cameras around computers, enabling the average person without any knowledge to take subpar caliber photos. And for the average person that worksout just fine. Very smart of the camera makers to do this, they sell a TON more cameras to the general public, but very stupid of you to think all you need to do is dump money into a camera, get a business license, and POOF you are magically turned into a professional photographer. Think I’m exaggerating? Just read an article the other day that was published by a large news outlet, which the title read ‘Need some extra cash this holiday season? Become a professional photographer.’ It went into detail about how simply buying a camera and offering professional photo services and you are now in the photo biz. Can you believe that? The word “professional” has lost ALL meaning. Like I said, the point ‘n shoot world we now live in is quite delusional, which by the way, also happens to be the same world which lives and dies on consumerism. Think about that for a second. I don’t know if there is a more disrespected, underqualified while oversaturated, undereducated “profession” than photography. Consumerism, we thank you (that would be sarcasm…).

All the gear side requires is money, that’s it. The knowledge side requires time, effort, and a tons of practice and patience.

Investment is like a weight scale – gear on one side, and knowledge on the other. All the gear side requires is money, that’s it. The knowledge side requires time, effort, and a tons of practice and patience. No surprise, the knowledge side will take longer to build. Only an evenly weighted scale will result in full-potential photographs. And no, reading your camera manual, as enlightening as that is, is not an education. With the insane abundance of information added daily via the internet, video, books, and forums, there is no excuse to be lacking in knowledge. Light and ways to capture it is a never-ending, life-long journey of learning. It doesn’t stop after one book, and it definitely doesn’t stop after the purchase of a DSLR or better lens.

Education doesn’t need to be all formal. Again, mountains of information await you online, in workshops, books, videos, and there is no reason you shouldn’t constantly being getting more of it, regardless if you just picked up a camera or you have 5, 10, 20 years experience in photography. It really is a continually evolving skill and understanding. The evolution of technology in this career field is also another important reason to constantly be riding the education train.

2. Seeking Out A “Style”

You hear it a lot, photographers trying to find a style, a “look” to form their photography around. This ultimately leads you to the net and other sources of imagery, where you scour over photos, other photographers, and figuring out what you like and what you want your photography to look like. This approach is completely backwards. It will quickly toss you and your work in a rut, with complete lack of refreshing images, as you are intentionally pigeon-holing your work by forcing it into some preconceived goal (which by the way isn’t your true self’s work). Pull the camera up to your eye and capture what speaks to you… this, this is your style. I’m hoping that you became a photographer to capture life from YOUR perspective, not aiming to be just like someone else and create work just like another photographer. Which quickly leads to the next mistake.

3. Replicating Other Photographer’s Work, Calling It Creative

This is very closely related to the previous “mistake.” If you’ve had your nose in photography for a while, I’m sure you’ve become a fan of a photographer or two. You like their work, their approach, style, the way the write their blogs, etc. A major pitfall people make are seeing photographs they like, which sends them out to recreate the photo. Um, why? And adding insult to injury, these same replicating photographers label themselves as “creative” and “fresh.” Really? We are surrounded by photographers, which is great, as it generates competition, inspiration, avenues to relate and contrast from one another. Use photographers work to analyze techniques and methods to push your OWN work. If you ever find yourself taking images and the photos you are creating remind you of another person’s work, you might want to re-evaluate your approach. I know of photographers while in “discovery” modes will set out to reproduce a photograph they saw to better understand a technique, and that is cool, as they then take it and make a photograph of their own with a sprinkle of what they learned while recreating and discovering things. But! By no means should this “learn by replicating others” be used in your true work with your own clients.

Your photographs should come from inside you, not driven from another photographer’s flickr account. This brings me back to the “style” mistake. Michael Jackson, Elvis, Michael Jordan, Jim Carrey… when these names come to mind I think “original.” They break the molds because they learned from those who came before them and then injected their own 100% completely original self into their passion. In other words, these people didn’t become great because they sought-out to be like anyone else, produce results like anyone else, or worry about having a “style.” They were themselves in the very purest form, and from that they birthed their own style. In my opinion, style can’t be found no matter how hard you look or try. Forcing a “style” will not be style at all. Every time I go out to take photos, I don’t say, “I gotta do this and that and I will have effectively photographed this to my style.” Create imagery that is pleasing to your eye, whatever strikes a chord inside of you at the time, and you have captured exactly what you are seeking – an original style which is 100% you. That is a portfolio worth looking at. Your style will reveal itself when you have captured “you,” and you sit back and flip through your portfolio.

All personal ambition aside, driving yourself to constantly making genuine original photographs will get the attention of clients, and the REALLY good clients. Believe me, you are not going to be getting the amazing clients because you were the one-millionth photographer to “come-up” with the idea of resting heart-shaped hands on a pregnant belly.

Replicating other’s work not only pertains to a particular photo composition, but I also see a lot of people bummin’ editing styles, down-to-the-tee lighting techniques, entire scenarios, etc. from other photogs. Again, emulate others for training, for a better understanding of how to mix a little of it into your own work when it’s finally “go-time,” but please… make original works. Strive to be different, something that deserves all of the titles you use to describe your photography (“professional” included).

4. Over Abundance Of “We” On The Website

Not a giant issue, but I see it all the time – a single business person using the word “we” in-place of “I” all over a photographer’s website. Why? To me, this comes across as you are trying to be something and bigger than you really are, and you are clearly trying to overcompensate for something. If your photo business is more than one photographer, then knock yourself out, use “we” until the cows come home, but if you are a sole photographer… don’t. Stick to using “I,” be proud of “I.” Besides, when read, “we” immediately is less personable, and makes your clients assume they are going to have to deal with a group of people and not necessarily work directly with you. You most likely are a one-man-show, as you’ll be the correspondence, business person, accountant, and photographer. Your clients already know that, and it’s a very personal experience all the way around. Believe me, your clients will appreciate that they only have to deal with one person, it’s easier and you form a better, more lasting relationship.

Don’t confuse this with third-person writing. Sometimes, due to contextual reasons, you may find it easy when composing text for a website, article, event, etc. to write in the third-person (ex. writing your own bio, it can go first or third-person). This should be used in moderation, and obviously things that are automatically designed to be more intimate reading experiences, like a blog, should always be in an “I” context.

5. The “Everything” Photographer Portfolio

Yep, you have a camera, you know how to use it… good for you, but don’t market EVERYTHING. How many clients are looking for a photog that can shoot products, cats and dogs, babies, mountains, bees, cars, an empty train cart on the tracks, your christmas tree, the cheeseburger you are about to eat… (should I keep going)? Sure, most skilled photographers can point a camera at just about anything and captured it decently. You have a love of photography and you like to shoot anything and everything. I’m right there with ya, but you need to understand that when someone is looking to PAY a photographer for a very SPECIFIC job, they are looking for someone who specializes in that area. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Your pretty photo of a bridge with a sunset is NOT going to directly relate to someone who needs their 3-year-old photographed, they’ll go to the photog who has a port full of kid photos.

As a professional, you’ll need to narrow down your spectrum of photo areas (ex. portrait, product, wildlife, landscape, etc), and market to those specific markets if you want good paying clients. Fill your port with ONLY photos of the markets you specialize-in and spend most of your time in. Your BLOG is where you can go wild and crazy with all of the other stuff, share your random photo adventures of your personal interests. Your blog provides your viewers with more perspective on you, get to know you better, and see that you do dabble in other things. You might get a gig or two because they read a blog post about something random you shot, but I wouldn’t hold your breath on it. Paying clients want specialists, your portfolio is the face of your biz, the first thing people should see, and it should be very focused.

I shoot portraiture, my port is filled with ONLY people and their faces. In my blog you’ll find just about anything, but mainly it is still focused on people and topics in that area. I take photos almost every day, a lot of random stuff, and 90% of it will never even see my blog, and there is a reason for that.

6. Lack of Editing Perspective

Post processing, editing, post, whatever you want to call it, there are a lot of people out there doing it wrong. Sure, there is a TON of wiggle room for personal taste and style when it comes to editing, however, there are some very simple rules that seem to escape photographers. I don’t know if it’s a lack of experience or being too wrapped-up in the digital side of the world, but a lot of photographers are not editing for PRINT. Yes, people still PRINT their photos. Of course media outlets like Facebook, email, other websites will utilize digital photos well, but I don’t know if I’ve had a portrait client not print ANY photos from their sessions. “Duh…so, Matt, where are you going with this…”

BLOWN-OUT images… I see more blown-out faces in images than I do “correctly” exposed skin tones in photography on the web. Blown-out, meaning an area of the image that is considered white, no-detail in those areas. Do you edit your images like this? If so, you probably haven’t seen a terrible amount of your photos in print. Why can I safely assume this? Because blown-out faces in print look like crap, and if you knew you were delivering that to your paying clients, you’d definitely change your editing approach.

You need to edit for the world, not your own computer screen. What looks good on your computer might look like crap in print, or even other people’s computers. A couple things to get you started: calibrate your monitor (need to buy a hardware/software combo, like Spyder), and order some prints from the print shops you send your client’s photos to so you can see what your edits look like as far as color/saturation/exposure. You should be using editing software that can tell you right away if you have loss of detail in the highlight areas of your photos, use that function, spot check all of your images.

Additional advice would be to make edits to a photo shoot and then walk away from your computer, or move onto something else, and then come back the next day and see if you still like the edits you made (all the way down to white balance, contrast, etc). Especially if you are fresh to bulk editing, chances are, you’ll want to re-edit a lot of your tweaks. Repeat this process until you can come back to the photos and not want to change anything. After you’ve done this process for a bunch of shoots, you’ll have a better hang of it and have the confidence to edit and export a shoot in one sitting.

7. Neglected Blog

Holy cow, this speaks so poorly for your biz. If you decide to have a blog, you gotta take care of the thing. It’s just like when you buy a puppy for your kids, you know you are going to have to take care of it. It IS a lot of work, so know that going in. It’s better to NOT have a blog if you can’t keep it updated. This doesn’t mean you need to update it every day, but if you are not making at least a couple posts a month, just X the whole idea, kill the thing, and put it out of it’s misery. The whole point of a blog is to generate new content to keep your visitors coming back for fresh/new content and info. Portfolios are usually only updated every few months (at best), so the only reason for returning visitors is to view your blog. If people keep coming back to see what’s new on your blog, and it doesn’t change visit after visit, you are sending a couple bad messages. One, you don’t have a lot of work. Two, you are lazy.

Additionally, if you do write a blog, then WRITE in it. I see a lot of photographer blogs which are pretty much photos with 1-3 sentences stuffed in the post. Really? Way to NOT make an effort. Your photos that are worth showing-off should already be in your portfolio, so unless you have something to say about your photos (like a story, the challenges for a shoot, the gear you used, something interesting), don’t write a blog. Without meaningful writing to go along with your blog, it’s just a duplicate, hard-to-navigate second portfolio.

If you decide to have a blog, you gotta take care of the thing. It’s just like when you buy a puppy for your kids, you know you are going to have to take care of it.

Of course there will be times that simply get so hectic that your blog can get a little sparse on updates at a couple points in the year, but one or two or six month gaps in your blog are unacceptable. Take care of your puppy or give it away.

8. Generic And Free Websites

Can you say “CHEAP!?” The very FIRST thing that pops in my head when I see a free website, a generic/mass public domain name, and a gmail contact address is “cheap.” Web and email services are dirt cheap any more (like ~$100 bucks a year for everything), so there are no excuses to not make the jump and get personalized domain names, website services, and email accounts. You are asking your  clients to “invest” a lot of money into your services, yet you can’t do one of the most basic things and stand-up a professional web presence? Who needs to do the investing? You don’t know how to set this up? Simple, hire someone. Yes, being a digital photographer curbs a lot of the expenses other career fields have to take-on, but that doesn’t mean you can’t spend a little money on your biz. If you want to be taken seriously, establish a serious web presence, get a custom-made site, ya know… something that took more time and effort than registering your name on a free website host. This goes for blogs too, get a custom install on your web hosting space, this will allow you to run it the way you want.

Even worse are the photographers who think a standalone website is unnecessary, or they don’t want to put in the work to make it. They rely on Facebook, Flickr, and smugmug to present their business. Let’s not get into this train wreck any further, but let’s point out that you are clearly not serious about your biz, so don’t expect anyone else to see it any differently.

9. Sparse Contact Info

The almighty contact form. It’s great, simple, and makes it easy for people to send you a message. But what if they wanted to call you or even want your email address to send a direct email? Are you really going to require them to send you a message before they are privy to your phone number? Yes, it sucks that the web is stuffed full of bots sniffing through every inch of the web, snatching-up any piece of info they can, and it’s not an awesome feeling that someone might snag your personal info. There are tricks around this. Bots can read info on plain text, meaning information on a jpeg is just a jpeg, and they can’t read it. Keep your contact form, but put your contact info in an image and add it to your contact page. Like this (click here). This will provide information clients will want to have. Give your clients a reassuring feeling by not hiding behind a form.

I know that we have all had issues at some point in life and we’ve hopped-on the web to find contact info to quickly contact a business. How maddening is it when there is no other contact info than a careless form for you to submit? No name, address, number, or direct email. If you are in a hurry and need info quick, you don’t even bother with the form, do ya? People visiting your site will do the same thing, just keep that in-mind.

10. It’s A Digital Business, It’s Cheap

This is on the fringes of the ‘website’ topic, but goes way further. Not only should you be able to pony-up the clams for a proper web presence, but so many other things. Yes, a lot of your business “lives” on the web, but it all ultimately comes back to the physical world. A healthy and reliable computer, professional-grade software tools, a backup solution for all of your digital files, renting studio space or access to indoor locations during bad weather (or in the PNW’s case, bad half of the year), the countless number of lights and accessories, the list goes on. Business operations have changed in the last few years, social networks have made marketing a truly free avenue, as you can reach just as many people as the most powerful companies in the world using tools like Facebook. Starting a digitally-based outfit doesn’t change a lot of the upfront costs to run a healthy business, it just takes a lot of the long-term operating risk out of the equation (which should further reinforce your want to “go for it”). It’s not like the film days with development, today pixels are free.

Final Thoughts

If you ask me, the “mistakes” spelled-out in-detail above, all come back to the first one – lack of knowledge and the false sense that owning nice equipment is the answer to a successful and well-ran, well-represented biz. I’ve just scratched the surface here with this list, but I wanted to keep it basic. If you are guilty of a couple of these, it’s a sign that you have not properly invested in yourself and your biz. If you want to be taken seriously as a photographer, you need to take it seriously, just as any other business owner out there (expect to get what you put into it). In my eyes, someone who understands and practices all of the above, yet only has an entry-level DSLR and kit lens is YEARS AND LEAPS ahead of the other guy who could afford a $10,000 camera setup and didn’t take in-account he’d actually have to invest time and money in knowledge and the rest of the biz (and this gap will only widen with time). Of course, attending a workshop or two, reading books, watching videos, and getting your questions answered should have patched-up most of these “mistakes” already.